Memoir writing encourages self-awareness among students

The most meaningful writing students can do is to write their memoirs, notes Greg Graham, who teaches writing at the University of Central Arkansas. "Putting a narrative frame on our past -- especially our struggles -- promotes perspective and self-awareness that are otherwise out of reach for most people," he writes. The benefits of memoir writing are demonstrated through the movie "Precious," Graham writes, in which an abused teenage girl is able to make headway in life through writing.